Whole Again?
by MakoRain
Summary: Tifa is trying to deal with her problems, but will Cloud stay with her? Second of Tifa depressed series.


A/N: After leaving Sharp Numbness off like I did, I've had the feeling to continue the story in a sequel and since inspiration has hit me hard, I must comply. Here is the fruit of my labor, please R&R. (I own nothing FFVII).

"**Whole Again?"**

**By MakoRain**

_Now _

The rain fell in curtains outside her bedroom window and yet Tifa felt nothing, no comfort, no joy, no emotion whatsoever. _Not again…I should be better by now._ It was almost a year ago that Cloud had found her unconscious body sprawled on the bar room floor after her second…or was it third time? Tifa shook her head to clear the mist that was her mind. It didn't matter; it was only suicide and she'd failed, that's all that mattered. It was times like these that she wondered if it was good to be alive instead of below ground like she should have been.

But now with Cloud here…a glimmer of hope caressed her battered heart and she snuffed it out, unable to handle what that little spark of hope would bring. Maybe that was her problem; she kept rejecting anything and everything that was meant to be good for her. She wanted to run to Cloud to make sure he was there but he was working the bar below in Tifa's unstable state and so she curled up on her window seat and wallowed in her self destructive thoughts.

Her face against the cool glass felt relief for her burning skin and her eyes followed the trailing drops of water before she realized she was crying. Quickly she wiped away the tears, bitter with herself and her uncontrollable emotions; she hated being weak like this.

Why wasn't she better?

She had cried more in these last weeks than her entire lifetime and she didn't want to go back there, to that horrible pitch black place where all she could here was her breathing until it became too much and she'd try to stop it by not breathing. Not always a good thing to do for long periods of time.

The marks on her arms caught her eye and she idly traced their path; they really were beautiful. She didn't regret the shooting stars and intricate designs of ivy and floral intertwining around her wrists. If anything, they gave her comfort for what she had gone through, reminding her it could always be worse if she chose it to be. Did she still have a choice?

_Just after everything_

The ball she made her body into held her together, Cloud's arms adding to the security of Tifa not falling apart literally. She clung to herself in his hold and cried, her tears mixing with the rain in the down poor on the rooftop.

Had she really just done that? She remembered the despair, so vast that it pulled her in until she was standing in the rain high above the ground. She wasn't really going to jump, right? It didn't matter for she almost did unwillingly but she was still alive, all thanks to the man holding her, telling her how much he loved her above the thunder.

How could he love her? She had just tried to kill herself for Christ's sake. _No, I wasn't! I mean…I don't know anymore_. Her thoughts spun in her head, randomly coming to the surface to show her what she'd been living through these past months. The drinking, the pills, the cutting, all of it would haunt her.

Cloud's hands still held her and she slowly unfolded from herself, letting him hold all of her together instead of trying to do it all by herself. Her arms were a collage of white lines from the scars her razor blade had made and yet she wasn't ashamed. She felt comforted more than anything with the detailed pictures displaying what she cherished most, the stars, hearts, paper flowers, rain clouds, her wolf…it was there for her to look at every day. That was something to look forward to.

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The days after the incident had been the worst. Cloud was always there and instead of Tifa feeling elated like she should, she felt trapped. He was always there, never leaving her alone or out of his sight and it got to the point where Tifa enjoyed the small pain of her nails biting into her palms, it was better than snapping on him and making things worse. He was only trying to help, but didn't he understand that smothering her was not the best thing?

Apparently not right away since it took him about a week to let her be left alone to dress, sleep, eat, every thing normal people could do on their own but not her. She didn't blame him really, not after the agony of the first week.

_Withdrawl_

Tifa shook Cloud's concerns off without caring what he thought, she was going to take a shower alone and that was final. She loved him, but not right at the moment when she was ready, willing, and almost begging to hurt something and be hurt in return. She did love him too much for that something to be him and so she walked away and closed the door before he could protest any longer. At least she'd have a rational reason beyond emotional damage this time.

The click of the lock held a finality to it that Tifa longed for. She was alone. Funny that after all these months of wishing and hoping to be with someone, most of all Cloud, again would not matter right now when he was right there for her. Maybe it was because he was so accessible that she didn't want him at the moment. No, that wasn't true; even now her body craved the gentle touch of his arms holding her, keeping her together against this raging thing inside her.

She needed him so badly but she didn't want to need him. She loved him but still pushed him away. What was wrong with her? _Maybe the steam of a shower will clear my thoughts. _The knob turned easily under her hand and she enjoyed the cool feel of the steel. It had only been a couple days since the roof but Tifa found herself liking the hardness of the metal much more than was healthy and instead focused on the water spraying on her body and streaming down her skin.

Instead of clear liquid she was soon seeing red, bright and diluted with the water as it washed away and down the drain of the shower. _How was there blood here?_ Without even realizing it, Tifa had the metal shower rack that held the shampoos and soap in her hands, the somewhat sharp edge biting into her flesh. Her mind didn't register this though, instead focusing on the thoughts it brought up, of all those times she had been in the bathroom carving carefully and with purpose into her arms. This, here and now, was just a need, a craving to feel the metal and see the blood all connected.

Glaring at the object, Tifa fought with herself over what to do. She needed to put the bar down…but she wanted it so badly…no, she needed to not do this. Quickly and without anymore thinking she dropped the rack and it rattled on the tile floor as she turned off the water and got out, wrapping a towel around her exposed body.

It was just one slip up. She could do this, she could get through this. Tifa would last and break herself of needing the sharp pain, of needing to feel nothing and then feel everything in such extremes. She just had to get through this first week.

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She never expected the liquor would take such a toll on her body. Drinking every day had her craving her vodka and orange juice, but she was not allowed. Cloud looked after everything in the bar and went so far as to threaten to lock her in her room the time he caught her in the liquor cabinet. She blindly agreed, surely this would be easier to get past than the cutting. But she would wake at night wanting to feel the burn of the alcohol hit her bloodstream and make her alive until she drank too much and felt nothing, nothing at all. No thoughts, no cares, no emotions, just a black hole she wished to be lost in forever.

She was right; the burning was easier to give up then the bite of metal into her flesh. Not so much could be said for the pills. After taking so many concoctions over the weeks her body was hating her now, writhing in pain from the lack of barbiturates and tranquilizers. Her blood burned and body ached the first few days until she thought she couldn't take it any more. It was a good thing Cloud stuck by her then, and so it passed and she could breathe again without the need of medication to make it all better.

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_In the middle of it all_

The first week was bad, but what followed was down right disturbing. Cloud left Tifa alone after realizing she wasn't going to do anything irrational after locking her door, of course. She was sure he felt bad about it and after a while, she welcomed the key sliding into the lock and keeping her safe inside, letting nothing in or her out.

Most days she had nothing to do but sit and think which was not always good. Some days Tifa would sit and think about her childhood, how she could have done things differently, how things could have been now instead of how they were. Others, she would think about how nothing meant anything anymore, she wasn't really living trapped here in this little room, so why would it matter if she didn't exist at all?

She needed a purpose to survive through each day and she would watch the sun move across the sky from her window every day, waiting for the sound of the lock being released. Cloud was her life, now. He even stopped locking the door, seeing that she was not a flight risk and was rather calm most days.

Bed time was the best because Cloud would hold her close to him, no longer leaving her alone in her empty bed to fight off her nightmares. When he held her, she felt safer…more alive than ever before and she never wanted that feeling to go away. When it did, her world was skewed once again.

Looking back at it, she realized what triggered it to happen, but never knew it at the time. If she had, maybe she would be a little more put back together than she was.

One day Cloud had made a decision and asked Tifa to come down to the bar with him. This wasn't so bad seeing that there was no crowd and she had been in this room so many times, it felt natural to stand behind the counter once again, even after being caged for so long. That was fine, with her and Cloud alone. It was the more than her and Cloud part that did some damage.

It wasn't something she had expected. Before, Tifa had been very social and up to date on all the latest gossip and news, she was a bartender after all, her job was to listen. But being away from it all had been too much. She tried to make herself numb, to ignore all of the eyes on her and comments directed her way, but she didn't know how anymore, not without the pills, the booze, the blade. Cloud had averted her back to her room where she could panic there properly and not with so many witnesses. She was always thankful for that skill of his, to be able to head off a disaster before it could destroy her and take her in its path.

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At first she thought she was paranoid. _Cloud's late again, must be closing up the bar._ After her little incident with the people, she could understand how he might want some normal time with people who didn't fantasize about hurting themselves to stop the pain in their sick and twisted minds. She tried not to think like that as much, and if Cloud had been around more, he would have seen that.

His disappearing acts grew to an annoyingly frequent rate and soon Tifa was ignoring the fact that he had been there at all. Maybe she was the one who locked herself in her room to help control her actions. Maybe she was the one holding herself together, curled up in a little ball in her empty bed. Maybe it was all her and Cloud was just somewhere in the picture.

After about three months, Tifa realized that she was close. The fact was Cloud hadn't been there at all. She figured it all out when she was dreaming and as always, it had turned into a nightmare. Death was involved, and right away Sephiroth was there to give it and take someone she loved away. Every time it was Cloud.

He was stabbed, shot, burned alive, drown, consumed by the Lifestream, any and every kind of possible way to die was shown to Tifa night after night and it was when she woke up to find the lines between reality and illusions blurred that she finally understood why Cloud was gone. He had died years ago.

It took a while for her to understand this, for her mind to grasp such an illogical and yet reasonable explanation for it all. What about the talks they had? His arms keeping her together? His soft breath against her cheek as he slept next to her? His bluer than blue eyes staring at her in confusion when she was angry at nothing and everything all at once and he was the only one to see it? It just didn't add up…she couldn't have imagined all of that, could she?

She could and she did. Accepting it made it real and she thought that by doing so, the hallucinations would stop. She would no longer be able to hear his voice speaking calmly to her, comforting her after her last nightmare. She would not see him standing before her in her room's door frame after closing up Seventh Heaven. And she didn't…after taking a month to accept, it took another month for him to leave her alone.

Some nights she couldn't bare that he was really and truly gone. Those nights when the pain was overwhelming, where breathing was difficult and the urge to make it go away by any means necessary threatened to overtake her and ruin all of the progress she had made. Six months of nothing would not go to waste. Just as she would reach for the pills or start the frantic search for a knife, his voice would be there, talking her out of it in his rational understanding. He knew what she was going through. He knew what depression was like, what it could do to a person. His whole life had been one depressing episode after another, but he had never hurt himself for it. He lived with the pain, and if he could, then so could she, as long as Cloud never left her mind.

Tifa clung to her delusions with everything she had and in return, he was there for her, holding her while she cried herself to sleep for missing him, missing her life, missing everything she had lost and destroyed in the process of destroying herself. _Why couldn't you just let me die? I want to be with you…_

_Later Now_

"Tifa, I'm here, I'll always be here…"

_Not again._ His voice was in her head, whispering to her, but instead of clinging to it, Tifa just wanted it to stop for a while.

_No you're not, you're in my head_ she fought with herself illogically. Of course she knew she was wrong to fight with herself but when her mind was not only hers, it tended to do strange things to a person.

"Tifa, please, I love you."

His voice sounded so close, and why wouldn't it, he was in her psyche after all. Why he would want to still be there, she had no idea.

I love you, too. Please, stop doing this to me. The tears would not come, after everything else she didn't have it in her. His mind would never leave her alone, no matter how much she thought she wanted it to.

Cloud looked at her with a perplexed look…he really was so much like she remembered him. Same blonde spiky hair, azurian eyes, crooked smile and peaceful look now that the battles were over. But here was this furrow between his eyes, looking at her with such confusion. She couldn't look at him and turned away, not wanting to see the hurt in his gaze.

He couldn't understand what was wrong with her. She had been going through a lot lately…withdrawl was making her weak and playing with her mind. She was making progress, or so he though. Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Tifa, please don't block me out, not now."

Why was he still here? Her delusions made him here, all she had to do was stop thinking about him, but when that happened, other thoughts would cloud her brain and she didn't want that, she wanted nothing at all. Feeling nothing was what had started all of this…maybe that was what was needed to end it.

Quickly, Tifa headed for the bathroom and soon felt Cloud's presence behind her as she rummaged through the medicine cabinet. Where was it? Tifa was testing herself by keeping a few bottles of pills and a razor for shaving but that's all. The pills were only Tylenol, for God's sake. But the razor, that was the real test and that's what she grabbed.

The look on Cloud's face reflected in the mirror when she closed the cabinet went from confusion to recognition as the metal reflected in the light of the small room.

"Tifa…no" It was more of a plea than an acusation and she just looked at him, razor in hand.

"It's only until you disappear."

That made Cloud's sad eyes widen in surprise. He never knew she wanted him to leave, not after what had happened before. He couldn't leave her, not now and not ever, and she was going to have to accept that.

"Tifa, that won't make me go away."

Her auburn eyes were wide and seeking. "Then what will?"

"Nothing."

The lump in her throat threatened to overwhelm her and she took a deep breath to force it down.

"Why?" She was so hopeless that the only thing Cloud could do was pull her into his arms and saw with all his heart, "I'll always be here. I will love you no matter what happens. I'm here."

Burying her face deeper into his chest, Tifa took a breath and felt the pressure relieve, the call of the blade fading to be a low hum in the back of her mind instead of a constant siren. Resting there in his arms and listening to his heart beat it all faded into the background, the rhythm of his heart taking over her life and leading her on her way to a better place. She would be okay again, she only needed time and Cloud. She would be fine.

_As it was meant to be…_

The End


End file.
